


The sun is up, the sky is blue (it's beautiful, and so are you)

by knockturn



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Homeless, Busking, M/M, Writer Louis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:10:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knockturn/pseuds/knockturn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is 16 and broken. Louis is 21 and a struggling writer. He buys coffee for the kid sometimes, and it wasn't supposed to become a Thing, but it kind of becomes a Thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The sun is up, the sky is blue (it's beautiful, and so are you)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction that I've felt comfortable posting/continuing so feedback would be appreciated :) x 
> 
> Obviously this is made up, and I have 0 rights to One Direction and I'm not making money etc, etc. 
> 
> Thank you to my wonderful beta :) (mindlesshumor on tumblr xx)

Many days, Harry has noticed, can go by without event. Some days, though, etch themselves into lives permanently. The events some days hold continue to resonate so strongly that while Harry cannot remember what he had for breakfast, he can perfectly recall the scent of the shampoo on the person he was holding. He can also recollect the sinking feeling that planted itself in the pit of his stomach until it wound its way up his throat, suffocating him. He can remember what it's like to be reverted to a fear so base and instinctual that it overrides rational thought.

 

Harry remembers it all too clearly. ~~Harry wants to forget everything.~~

 

Harry thinks that suicide is a sticky word, the kind that gets caught in your throat and can't make it to  your mind, so you cannot possibly understand its significance until, suddenly, you can. But at that point it's too late. Suicide is akin to words like _love_ and  _hate,_ in that it holds no meaning until someone else has given it one. Harry knows what suicide means.

 

It is the loss of love, of life.

 

It is the loss of spirit.

 

It is all-consuming, overwhelming, and you are floating and sinking at the same time, with a ballast holding you up as an anchor tries to weigh you down.

 

~~It is selfish.~~

 

Harry understands why she did it. He feels selfish for wishing she didn't.

 

***

 

Harry groans as he stirs awake, and he instantly shrugs the wool peacoat he nicked tighter around his shoulders, seeking warmth. Harry feels that he is irreversibly cold, chilled to the bone. Maybe when the coroners cut him open after he is found dead, his blood will be frozen, congealed and thick. His bones will be covered in sheets of ice.

 

He sighs, and his lanky body is nestled between two buildings in an alleyway. The cold of the concrete he is asleep on seeps through the fabric of his jacket, and that's what finally makes him sit up.

 

Oddly, every morning is the same, despite the fact that Harry is in a new location every night. He sits up, wipes his eyes that have the residue of sleep left in them, grabs the rucksack that had been previously used as a pillow, and he counts the money in it.

 

Harry busks, see. Every day. Even the days his fingers are too numb to strum, and frost seems to have lodged itself inside his throat. He has to, because it gives him ~~something to stay alive for~~ purpose. It also makes him money, which he refuses to beg for.

 

Harry sighs when he grabs the brown leather rucksack from the ground. His breath curls in front of him in the unusually chilly summer morning air. Harry's fingers are stiff, but he manages to unclasp the bag and pull it open. Money is scattered at the bottom. There is an empty water bottle, a pen, a notebook, and a picture he can't bear to look at.

 

Soon, the banknotes and the change are laying in front of him, and he counts it, sorts it. Twice. His fingers shake with hunger. Exhaustion. The cold.

 

 _Twenty pounds and six pence_. There are twenty pounds and six pence, and that is enough for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with money to spare, if he's careful. Harry shoves the money into the pockets of his jeans that used to be too tight on him, but now nearly fall from his too-thin frame.  

 

It's a struggle, and Harry feels extraordinarily weighed down, but he finally stands. The jacket is too heavy. The near-empty rucksack is too heavy. His guitar case that sits on his back is much too heavy. Even his _skin_ is too heavy, spread thin over his body like rice paper. Harry's bones feel brittle, like they'll snap under the weight of his being. Blood pounds heavily in Harry's ears as he walks, and he needs to eat now, now, now. His vision is spotty, and he leans against the sides of buildings for support, but he finally makes it to a coffee shop he frequently plays in front of.

 

Harry likes this place well enough. The employees recognize him and never kick him out, which is nice. They don't look at Harry like he is trash, but there is ~~pity~~ sympathy in their eyes.

 

Harry is a ghost as he walks in, floating. His head is dizzy and he wonders if the others can see through his skin. He ~~is~~ feels translucent.

 

Chimes ring above the door to let the world know Harry has arrived in all of his homeless glory - dirty fringe visible from where is peeks out from his beanie, jeans ripped, jacket in shambles. He thinks they're nice, though, the bells. They confirm he's alive. A living, breathing person that can move, change, and affect things.

Sometimes Harry forgets that, but the ringing bell reminds him of the inherent calling to move forward and continue and attempt to live at the standard of mankind.

 

Liam is working today, Harry barely notes. "Hey, mate," the bloke says, jovial as always. _Liam is a good guy_ , Harry thinks. He works here to put himself through uni, and he looks at Harry like a person rather than a charity case.

 

"Can I have a breakfast sandwich and a hot coffee?" Harry asks, his voice paper thin. He leans against the counter for support, the grain in the wood going blurry. He has not eaten in far too long - has not had the money to. If the London crime rates don't kill him, he'll surely just wither away with hunger, seep into the cracks between the cobblestone roads, disappear forever.

 

Liam notices Harry's fatigue, and he nods with a small frown. He tells Harry the amount owed, and it's half of what it should be, but Harry pretends not to notice. ~~Liam is a good guy.~~  Harry thrusts money at him, the crumpled bills falling between them in the counter. When Harry is handed change, he thinks it is more than it should be, but he doesn't count it. He knows if Liam gave him too much, he'll give it back, and Harry desperately needs the money right now.

 

Ignorance is bliss.

 

Harry thinks his expression twists into something akin to appreciation, but Liam is already in the back toasting the bread for his sandwich.

 

Metal chairs scrap across the ground as people come and go. The chimes on the door jingle occasionally. A knife moves across toasted bread as it spreads a condiment, spilling crumbs everywhere. A man laughs too loud. Harry is in a room with real people who have real lives. Harry has just the ghost of an existence.

 

Harry thinks he is drowning, drowning, drowning, but then hot food and a hot mug is pressed into his hands. He sighs heavily, is brought back to the surface, and takes his items to the closest table. He sinks into the wooden chair, his limbs groaning in relief.

 

Harry eats slowly, meticulously, and the coffee and sandwich are a heavy weight that stretches his hollow stomach. His head stops spinning and he is nearly present again rather than being so faint, so the ache that creeps into his belly is worth it.

 

***

 

Harry is the definition of 'fly on the wall.' People notice him, but he is nothing more than a pest. Less than human. They pretend to be oblivious to his existence, because he is a reminder that there is bad in the perfect world people have built up for themselves.

 

Harry is the crack in the wallpaper that sits on pristine walls of a pristine house in a pristine neighborhood. He is the fault in the foundation that can only be ignored for so long before the entire place comes crumbling down. Harry was the bane of his parents' lives, until, suddenly, he was gone, and they could go back to pretending their lives were perfect.

 

They didn't even blink as they threw his things into the yard and gave him fifteen minutes to get off their property.

 

Harry ~~needed~~ hates them.

 

***

 

When the food is gone and his cramps have died down, Harry feels well enough to move. He throws his trash away and only makes it to the sidewalk before he sits, his back against the building. It is still early enough that the horizon is littered with pinks and yellows that peek through the London shops and eateries and businesses, and the sky turns a lighter blue higher up. Only men and women in business suits walk by, rushed off to work, and he knows they won't stop to listen to him sing. They won't drop change in his case.

 

Harry finally pulls out his guitar, the smooth wood familiar against the pad of his fingers. He folds his legs Indian-style under himself and strums. His chords are melancholy, and his rendition of Coldplay’s _Fix You_ is rusty at best. It’s still too early to sing, he’s still too cold.

 

A sigh furls itself from Harry’s lips when he’s finished the song and no one has stopped to give him money. His breath is a cloud in front of him, solid and pure before it dissipates into the air.

 

He’s not discouraged, though. He can’t be. Not this early in the day. Harry clears his throat, leans back against the cool wall. No one pays him attention, and like. Yeah, it gets tiring to not be noticed. His tongue darts out and licks chapped lips, and Harry thinks he is like the space between breaths, because he is neither here nor there. He is a wallflower, and as people walk by him, and he thinks it’d be nice to feel alive. He wishes people were like the bells in the coffee shop - there to remind him that he has a pulse, that his actions have consequences. He is not a rock that can be thrown out to the sea, ground into sand, and washed back up with none the wiser.

 

“Are you going to play?” A high voice asks from beside Harry then, and the boy startles slightly, not having noticed the man in his peripherals.

 

“Sorry?” is Harry’s automatic response. He swallows his embarrassment and looks up at the owner of the voice. He’s a bit scruffy, with bright eyes and cheeks flushed from the cold. Harry’s eyes travel over the grey peacoat and too-short skinny jeans he wears that make his ankles visible above his TOMS.

 

A smile dances on the stranger’s face, and he kneels to place a styrofoam coffee cup next to Harry. Harry scrutinizes the blue-eyed stranger warily, because _that_ is unusual. “You’ve got a guitar...” the man says slowly with raised eyebrows, as if Harry doesn’t speak English well. “So do you sing as well?” Blue Eyes looks amused, and Harry shuffles.

 

“Ah... Sure, yeah,” he says, and his stomach turns nervously. The man makes a motion with his hand as if to say _go on, then_. Harry’s used to having an audience sometimes, yeah, but like - he’s being _requested_ to play, and the stranger's eyes are heavy on him. This is out of Harry’s norm, but. Well, he was bought coffee by a stranger, so he might as well earn it. Harry murmurs a quiet, “Erm...” and then he strums a few times, double checking the pitch of his guitar before he starts, and

“ _Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play? Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day._ ” It's the first song that comes to his mind, and Harry’s voice is clearer this time, tone higher because it’s a Beatles song and he can’t _not_ do justice to a Beatles song. “ _The sun is up, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful, and so are you, Dear Prudence. Won’t you come out to play_?”

 

Harry keeps his eyes trained pointedly away from his only observer, choosing instead to look out over the sky that peaks between buildings as he sings. The sky grows less and less pink and more and more blue as time passes, and Harry feels lost in his song. He ignores the man when he sits down beside him, doesn't either turn to look at him or shuffle away. When he finishes with, _Look around, 'round, 'round, 'round, 'round..._  he holds the note, and lets the guitar hum beneath him. It’s like a second pulse, his guitar, and he feels it ring out through his entire body, makes his skin vibrate.

 

Harry is soon after reminded of the stranger’s presence when there’s a cheerful whooping, hands clapping together. Harry blushes and looks at him, tips his head in thanks.

 

“Didn’t expect you to be so good, if I’m honest,” Blue Eyes says brightly as he claps Harry's back lightly as if they’re old pals. Harry tenses slightly, unsure if he should be offended. He wonders idly what this stranger's ulterior motives are. He stays quiet and Blue Eyes continues, “Name’s Louis, by the way.” His smile is as bright as his eyes and his voice and his presence, and Harry thinks this man might literally be sunshine, and he thinks that if he steals from Harry likes others have, then Harry won't even be able to begrudge him. Maybe. “See, I’m new to London, but you look like you’ve been around for awhile so I thought _hey, why not bring the kid with the guitar coffee?_ So I did because I usually think and then do without _actually_ thinking about what I’m thinking about and _Jesus,_ it's cold for a summer morning, innit? Though it is only, like, 7, and - and now I’m rambling,” Louis laughs, and the sound actually fucking twinkles like wind chimes, and is this guy even _real_?

 

“You are,” Harry affirms Louis’ last statement, voice low and slow. Harry isn’t much of a talker, but the man talks enough for the both of them, so he thinks it might be okay.

 

Unperturbed, Louis smiles and Harry likes it - his smile. It looks like it’s meant only for him, and he feels so present in that moment, he almost doesn’t know what to do. He forgets what it’s like to be around other people, to be someone with relevance, albeit how minimal that relevance is.

 

“I got you a latte,” Louis says, as if he were already in the middle of a conversation about coffee. “I didn’t know what kind you’d like, and I figured lattes were proper classics, so.” Harry watches Louis’ pink, chapped lips as he speaks, watches the breath uncurl from his lips in the cold air. Louis shrugs and tugs the sleeves of his jumper lower over his ungloved hands.

 

“I’m not picky,” Harry says in his molasses voice, and Louis grins when Harry picks the cup up and takes a sip as if to prove his point.

 

“Right.” Louis nods and stands up then, dusting the dirt from the back of his pants as he does. “Well. Work beckons, then. See you ‘round, Curly,” he says with wave of his fingers, tugging a messenger bag Harry hadn’t noticed before higher over his shoulder.

 

Harry nods and everything is moving too quickly for him because he swears he hears a _Too-da-loo_ as the stranger - Louis - walks away and did that just _happen_? Who the hell says too-da-loo?

 

Harry takes another sip of the warm latte, its sugar seeping into his system, and yes. That was real, because there’s no way Harry could have afforded the £3.00 for this coffee. He could barely afford the black coffee today - had considered it a splurge, even.

 

As Louis retreats without a second glance, Harry thanks him silently for letting him feel like a person for the briefest of moments. So yeah, that was real. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ((((Comments motivate me to write faster I'm just throwing that out there ily))))


End file.
